Question XLII.
Whether all Christian kings are dependent from Christ, and may be called
his vicegerents.
The P. Prelate taketh on him to prove the truth of this; but the
question is not pertinent, it belongeth to another head, to the king's
power in church matters. I therefore only examine what he saith, and
follow him.
P. Prelate.  Sectaries have found a query of late, that kings are
God's, not Christ's lieutenants on earth. Romanists and puritans erect
two sovereigns in every state,  the Jesuit in the Pope, the puritan in
the presbytery.
Ans. 1.  We give a reason why God hath a lieutenant, as God; because
kings are gods, bearing the sword of vengeance against seditious and
bloody prelates, and other ill doers. But Christ, God-man, the Mediator
and head of the body  the church, hath neither pope nor king to be head
under him.
The sword is communicable to men; but the headship of Christ is
communicable to no king, nor to any created shoulders. 2. The Jesuit
maketh the Pope a king; and so this P. Prelate maketh him, in extent,
the bishop of bishops, and so king, as I have proved. But we place no
sovereignty in presbyteries, but a mere ministerial power of servants,
who do not take on them to make laws and religious ceremonies, as
prelates do, who indeed make themselves kings and lawgivers in God's
house.
P. Prelate.  We speak of Christ as head of the church. Some think that
Christ was king by his resurrection, jure acquisito, by a new title,
right of merit. I think he was a king from his conception.
Ans.  1. You declare hereby, that the king is a ministerial head of the
church, under the head Christ. All our divines, disputing against the
Pope's headship, say, No mortal man hath shoulders for so glorious a
head. You give the king such shoulders. But why are not the kings, even
Nero, Julian, Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar, vicegerents of Christ, as
mediator, as priest, as redeemer, as prophet, as advocate, presenting
our prayers to God his father? What action, I pray you, have Christian
kings, by office, under Christ, in dying and rising from the dead for
us, in sending down the Holy Ghost, preparing mansions for us? Now, it
is as proper and incommunicably reciprocal with the mediator to be the
only head of the body, the church, (Col. i. 18,) as to be the only
redeemer and advocate of his church.
2. That Christ was king from his conception, as man born of the Virgin
Mary, suiteth well with papists, who will have Christ, as man, the
visible head of the church; that so as Christ-man is now in heaven, he
may have a visible pope to be head in all ecclesiastical matters. And
that is the reason why this P. Prelate maketh him head of the church by
an ecclesiastical right, as we heard; and so he followeth Becanus the
Jesuit in this, and others of his fellows.
P. Prelate.  1. Proof. If kings reign by [Hebrew] per, in and through
Christ, as the wisdom of God and the mediator, then are kings the
vicegerents of Christ as mediator; but the former is said, Prov. viii.
15, 16; so Dr Andrews, of blessed memory.
Ans. 1.  I deny the major. All believers living the life of God,
engrafted in Christ as branches in the tree, (John xv. 1, 2,) should, by
the same reason, be vicegerents of the Mediator; so should the angels to
whom Christ is a head, (Col. ii. 10,) be his vicegerents; and all the
judges and constables on earth should be under-mediators, for they live
and act in Christ; yea, all the creatures, in the Mediator, are made
new, (Rev. xxi. 5; Rom. viii. 20-22.) 2. Dr Andrew's name is a curse on
the earth, his writings prove him to be a popish apostate. P. Prelate. 
2. Christ is not only king of his church, but in order to his church,
King over the kings and kingdoms of the earth. (Psal. ii. 5, 8.) 3. Matt
xxi. 18, "To him is given all power in heaven and earth;" therefore, all
sovereignty over kings. Ans. 1.  If all these be Christ's vicegerents,
over whom he hath obtained power, then, because the Father hath given
him power over all flesh, to give them life eternal, (John xvii. 1, 2,)
then are all believers his vicegerents, yea, and all the damned men and
devils, and death and hell, are his vicegerents; for Christ, as
mediator, hath all power given to him as king of the church, and so
power kingly over all his enemies, "to reign until he make them his
footstool," (Psal cx. 1, 2,) "to break them with a rod of iron." (Psal.
ii. 9; 1 Cor. xv. 24-27; Rev. i. 18, 20; v. 10-15.) And, by that same
reason, the P. Prelate's fourth and fifth arguments fall to the ground,
He is heir of all things; therefore, all things are his vicegerents.
What more vain? He is Prince of the kings of the earth, and King of Ogs,
of kings, of his enemies; therefore, sea and land are his vicegerents.
P. Prelate (p. 58).  Kings are nurse-fathers of the church, therefore
they hold their crowns of Christ. Divines say, that by men in sacred
orders Christ doth rule his church mediately in those things which
primely concern salvation, and that by kings' sceptres and power he doth
protect his church, and what concerneth external pomp, order, and
decency. Then, in this latter sense, kings are no less the immediate
vicegerents of Christ than bishops, priests, and deacons, in the former.
Ans. 1.  Because kings hold their crowns of Christ as mediator and
redeemer, it followeth, by as good consequence, kings are sub-mediators,
and under-priests, and redeemers, as vicegerents. Christ, as king, hath
no visible royal vicegerents under him. 2. Men in holy orders, sprinkled
with one of the papists' five blessed sacraments, such as antichristian
prelates, unwashed priests to offer sacrifices, and popish, deacons, are
no more admitted by Christ to enter into his sanctuary as governors,
than the leper into the camp of old, and the Moabite and Ammonite were
to enter into the congregation of the Lord (Deut. xxiii. 3); therefore,
we have excommunicated this P. Prelate and such Moabites out of the
Lord's house. What be the things that do not primely concern salvation,
the P. Prelate knoweth, to wit, images in the church, altar-worship,
antichristian ceremonies, which primely concern damnation.
3. I understand not what the P. Prelate meaneth, That the king
preserveth external government in order and decency. In Scotland, in our
parliament, 1633, he prescribed the surplice, and he commanded the
service-book, and the mass-worship. The Prelate degradeth the king here,
to make him only keep or preserve the prelates' mass-clothes; they
intended, indeed, to make the king but the Pope's servant, for all they
say and do for him now.
4. If the king be vicegerent of Christ in prescribing laws for the
external ordering of the worship, and all their decent symbolical
ceremonies, what more doth the Pope and the prelate in that kind? He
may, with as good warrant, preach and administer the sacraments.
P. Prelate.  Kings have the sign of the cross on their crowns.
Ans.  Therefore, baculus est in angulo, prelates have put across in the
king's heart, and crossed crown and throne too. Some knights, some
ships, some cities and boroughs do carry a cross; are they made Christ's
vicegerents of late? By what antiquity doth the cross signify Christ? Of
old it was a badge of Christians, no religious ceremony. And is this
all; the king is the vicegerent of Christians. The prelates, we know,
adore the cross with religious worship; so must they adore the crown.
P. Prelate.  Grant that the Pope were the vicar of Christ in spiritual
things, it followeth not  therefore, kings' crowns are subject to the
Pope; for papists teach that all power that was in Christ, as man, as
power to work miracles, to institute sacraments, was not transmitted to
Peter and his successors.
Ans.  This is a base consequence; make the Pope head of the church, the
king, if he be a mixed person, that is, half a churchman and Christ's
vicegerent, both he and prelates must be members of the head. Papists
teach that all in Christ, as man, cannot be transmitted to Peter; but a
ministerial catholic headship (say Bucanus and his fellows) was
transmitted from Christ, as | man and visible head, to Peter and the
Pope.
P. Prelate.  I wish the Pope, who claimeth so near alliance with
Christ, would learn of him to be meek and humble in heart, so should he
find rest to his own soul, to church and state.
Ans. 1.  The same was the wish of Gerson, Occam, the doctors of Paris,
the fathers of the councils of Constance and Basil, yet all make him
head of the church.
2. The excommunicate Prelate is turned chaplain to preach to the Pope;
the soul-rest that protestants wish to the Pope is, "That the Lord would
destroy him by the Spirit of his mouth." (2 Thes. ii. 8.) But to popish
prelates this wish is a reformation of accidents, with the safety of the
subject, the Pope, and is as good as a wish, that the devil, remaining a
devil, may find rest for his soul: all we are to pray for as having
place in the church, are supposed members of the church. The Prelate
would not pray so for the presbytery by which he was ordained a pastor,
(1 Tim. iv. 14,) though he be now an apostate; it is gratitude to pray
for his lucky father, the Pope. Whatever the Prelate wish, we pray for
and believe that desolation shall be his soul-rest, and that the
vengeance of the Lord and of his temple shall fall upon him and the
prelates, his sons.
P. Prelate.  That which they purpose, by denying kings to be Christ's
vicegerents, is to set up a sovereignty ecclesiastical in presbyteries,
to constrain kings, repeal his laws, correct his statutes, reverse his
judgments, to cite, convent, and censure kings; and, if there be not
power to execute what presbyteries decree, they may call and command the
help of the people, in whom is the underived majesty, and promise, and
swear, and covenant to defend their fancies against all mortal men, with
their goods, lands, fortunes, to admit no devisive motion; and this
sovereign association maketh every private man an armed magistrate.
Ans.  You see the excommunicate apostate strives against tho presbytery
of a reformed church, from winch ho had his baptism, faith, and
ministry.
1. We deny the king to be the head of the church.
2. We assert, that in the pastors, doctors, and elders of the church,
there is a ministerial power, as servants under Christ, in his authority
and name to rebuke and censure kings; that there is revenge in the
gospel against all disobedience (2 Cor. ii. 6; x. 6);  the rod of God
(1 Cor. iv. 21); the rod of Christ's lips (Isa. xi. 4); the sceptre and
sword of Christ (Rev. i. 16; xix. 15); the keys of his king[d]om, to
bind and loose, open and shut (Matt. xviii. 17, 18; xvi 19; 1 Cor. v. 1-
3; 2 Thess. iii. 14, 15; 1 Tim. i. 19; v. 22; v. 17); and that this
power is committed to the officers of Christ's house, call them as you
will.
3. For reversing of laws made for the establishing of popery, we think
the church of Christ did well to declare all these unjust, grievous
decrees, and that woe is due to the judges, even the queen, if they
should not repent. (Isa. x. 1.) And this Prelate must show his teeth in
this against our reformation in Scotland, which he once commended in
pulpit as a glorious work of God's right arm; and the Assembly of
Glasgow, 1638, declared, That bishops, though established by acts of
parliament, procured by prelates only, commissioners and agents for the
church, who betrayed their trust, were unlawful; and did supplicate that
the ensuing parliament would annul these wicked acts. They think God
privilegeth neither king nor others from church-censures. The popish
prelates imprisoned and silenced the ministers of Christ, who preached
against the public sins, the blood, oppressions, injustice, open
swearing, and blasphemy of the holy name of God, the countenancing of
idolaters, &c., in king and court.
4. They never sought the help of the people against the most unjust
standing law of authority.
5. They did never swear and covenant to defend their own fancies; for
the confession and covenant of the protestant religion, translated in
Latin to all the protestants in Europe and America, being termed a
fancy, is a clear evidence that this P. Prelate was justly
excommunicated for popery.
6. This covenant was sworn by king James and his house, by the whole
land, by the prelates themselves; and to this fancy this P. Prelate, by
the law of our land, was obliged to swear when he received degrees in
the university.
7. There is reason our covenant should provide against divisive motions.
The prelates moved the king to command all the land to swear our
covenant, in the prelatical sense, against the intent thereof, and only
to divide and so command. Judge what religion prelates are of, who will
have the name of God profaned by a whole nation, by swearing fancies.
8. Of making private men magistrates in defending themselves against
cut-throats, enough already. Let the P. Prelate answer if he can.
P. Prelate.  Let no man imagine me to privilege a king from the
direction and just power of the church, or that, like Uzziah, he should
intrude upon sacred actions, ex vi ordinis, in foro interno conscientiζ,
to preach or administrate sacraments, &c.
Ans.  Uzziah did not burn incense, ex vi ordinis, as if he had been a
priest, but because he was a king and God's anointed. Prelates sit not
in council and parliament, ex vi ordinis, as temporal lords. The pope is
no temporal monarch, ex vi ordinis, yet all are intruders. So the P.
Prelate will license kings to administer sacraments, so they do it not
ex vi ordinis.
P. Prelate.  Men in sacred orders, in tilings intrinsically spiritual,
have immediately a directive and authoritative power, in order, to all
whatsoever, although ministerial only as related to Christ; but that
giveth them no coercive civil power over the prince, per se, or per
accidens, directly or indirectly, that either the one way or the other,
any or many in sacred order, pope or presbytery, can cite and censure
kings, associate, covenant or swear to resist him, and force him to
submit to the sceptre of Christ. This power over man God Almighty useth
not, much less hath he given it to man. (Psal. cx.) His people are a
willing people. Suadenda non cogenda religio.
Ans. 1.  Pastors have a ministerial power (saith he) in spiritual
things, but in order to Christ; therefore, in order to others it is not
ministerial, but lordly. So here a lordly power pastors have over kings,
by the P. Prelate's way. We teach it is ministerial in relation to all,
because ministers can make no laws as kings can do, but only, as
heralds, declare Christ's laws.
2. None of us give any coercive civil power to the church over either
kings or any other  it is ecclesiastical; a power to rebuke and censure
was never civil.
3. A religious covenant to swear to resist, that is, to defend
ourselves, is one thing, and a lawful oath, as is clear in those of
Israel that did swear Asa's covenant, without the authority of their own
king, (2 Chron. xv. 9-12,) and to swear to force the king to submit to
Christ's sceptre, is another thing. The presbytery never did swear or
covenant any such thing; nor do we take sacrament upon it, to force the
king. Prelates have made the king swear, and take his sacrament upon it,
that he shall root out puritans, that is, protestants, whereas, he did
swear at his coronation to root out heretics, that is, (if prelates were
not traitorous in administering the oath,) Arminians and papists, such
as this P. Prelate is known to be; but I hold that the estates of
Scotland have power to punish the king, if he labour to subvert religion
and laws.
4. If this argument, that religion is to be persuaded, not forced, which
the P. Prelate useth, be good, it will make much against the king; for
the king, then, can force no man to the external profession and use of
the ordinances of God, and not only kings, but all the people should be
willing.
P. Prelate.  Though the king may not preach, &c., yet the exercise of
these things freely within his kingdom, what concerneth the decent and
orderly doing of all, and the external man, in the external government
of the church, in appointing things arbitrary and indifferent, and what
else is of this strain, are so due to the prerogative of the crown, as
that the priests, without highest rebellion, may not usurp upon him; a
king in the state and church is a mixed person, not simply civil, but
sacred too. They are not only professors of truth, that they have in the
capacity of Christians, but they are defenders of the faith as kings;
they are not sons only, but nurse-fathers; they serve God, as Augustine
saith, as men, and as kings also. Ans. 1.  If ye give the king power of
the exercises of word and sacraments in his kingdom, this is deprivation
of ministers in his kingdom, (for he sure cannot hinder them in another
kingdom,) you may make him to give a ministerial calling, if he may take
it away. By what word of God can the king close the mouth of the man of
God, whom Christ hath commanded to speak in his name? 2. If the king may
externally govern the church, why may he not excommunicate; for this is
one of the special acts of church government, especially seeing he is a
mixed person, that is, half a churchman, and if he may prescribe
arbitrary-teaching ceremonies, and instruct men in the duties of
holiness required of pastors, I see not but; he may teach the Word. 3.
Dr Ferne, and other royalists, deny arbitrary government to the king in
the state, and with reason, because it is tyranny over the people; but
prelates are not ashamed of commanding a thing arbitrary and indifferent
in God's worship; shall not arbitrary government in the church be
tyranny over the conscience? But, say they, "Churchmen teacheth the king
what is decent and orderly in God's worship, and he commandeth it."
Ans.  1. Solomon by no teaching of churchmen deposed Abiathar; David by
no teaching of churchmen appointed the form of the temple. 2. Hath God
given a prerogative royal to kings, whereby they may govern the church,
and as kings, they shall not know how to use it, but in so far as they
are taught by churchmen? 3. Certainly, we shall once be informed by
God's word, what is this prerogative, if according to it, all the
external worship of God may be ordered. Lawyers and royalists teach,
that it is an absoluteness of power to do above or against a law, as
they say from 1 Sam. viii., 9-11, and whereby the king may oppress, and
no man may say, What dost thou? Now, good P. Prelate, if, by a plenitude
of tyranny, the king prescribe what he will in the external worship and
government of God's house, who can rebuke the king though he command all
the antichristian ceremonies of Rome, and of Turkey, yea, and the
sacrificing of children to Molech? (for absoluteness royal will amount
to shedding of innocent blood,) for, if any oppose the king, or say,
Sir, what do you? he opposeth the prerogative royal, and that is highest
rebellion, saith our P. Prelate. 4. I see not how the king is a mixed
person, because he is defender of the faith, as the Pope named the king
of England, Henry VIII.; he defendeth it by his sword, as he is a nurse-
father, not by the sword that cometh out of his mouth. 5. I would know
how Julian, Nebuchadnezzar, Og, and Sihon, were mixed persons, and did
all in the external government of the church, and that by their office,
as they were kings. 6. All the instances that Augustine bringeth to
prove that the king is a mixed person, proveth nothing but civil acts in
kings; as Hezekiah cast down the high places, the king of Nineveh
compelled to obey the prophet Jonah, Darius cast Daniel's enemies to the
lions.
P. Prelate.  If you make two sovereigns and two independents, there is
no more peace in the state, than in Rebecca's womb, while Jacob and Esau
strove for the prerogative.
Ans. 1.  What need Israel strive, when Moses and Aaron are two
independents? If Aaron make a golden calf, may not Moses punish him? If
Moses turn an Ahab, and sell himself to do wickedly, ought not eighty
valiant priests and Aarons both rebuke, censure, and resist?
2. The P. Prelate said, (p. 65,) "Let no man imagine we privilege the
king from the direction and power of the church, so he be no intruding
Uzziah." I ask, P. Prelate, what is this church power? Is it not supreme
in its kind of church power? or is it subordinate to the king? If it be
supreme, see how P. Prelate maketh two supremes, and two sovereigns. If
it be subordinate to the king, as he is a mixed person, the king is
privileged from this power, and he may intrude as Uzziah; and by his
prerogative, as a mixed person, he may say mass, and offer a sacrifice,
if there be no power above his prerogative to curb him. If there be
none, the P. Prelate's imagination is real; the king is privileged from
all church power. Let the P. Prelate see to it. I see no inconvenience
for reciprocations of subjections in two supremes; and that they may
mutually censure and judge one another.
Obj.  Not in the same cause, that is impossible. If the king say mass,
shall the church judge and censure the king for intrusion? and because
the king is also sovereign and supreme in his kind, he may judge and
punish the church for their act of judging and censuring the king; it
being an intrusion on his prerogative, that any should judge the highest
judge.
Ans.  The one is not subject to the other, but in the case of mal-
administration; the innocent, as innocent, is subject to no higher
punishing; he may be subject to a higher, as accusing, citing, &c. Now,
the royalist must give instance in the same cause, where the church
faileth against the king and his civil law; and the king, in the same
cause, faileth against the church canon; and then it shall be easy to
answer.
P. Prelate.  Religion is the bottom of all happiness, if you make the
king only to execute what a presbytery commandeth, he is in a hard case,
and you take from him the chiefest in government. Ecclesiastical power
hath the soul in subjection; the civil sovereignty holdeth a dead
dominion over the body. Then the Pope and presbytery shall be in a
better condition than the king. Cic. in ver. omnes religione moventur:
superstition is furious, and maddeneth people, that they spare neither
crown nor mitre.
Ans.  Cold and dry is the P. Prelate when he spendeth four pages in
declamation for the excellency of relig[i]on: the madness of
superstition is nothing to the purpose.
1. The king hath a chief hand in church affairs, when he is a nurse-
father, and beareth the royal sword to defend both the tables of the
law, though he do not spin and weave surplices, and other base mass-
clothes to prelates, and such priests of Baal: they dishonour his
majesty, who bring his prerogative so low.
2. The king doth not execute with blind obedience, with us, what the
Pope commandeth, and the prelates, but with light of knowledge what
synods discern; and he is no more made the servant of the church by
this, than the king of Judah and Nebuchadnezzar are servants to Jeremiah
and Daniel, because they are to obey the word of the Lord in their
mouth. Let them show a reason of this, why they are servants in
executing God's will in discipline, and in punishing what the Holy
Ghost, by his apostles and elders, decree, when any contemn the decree
concerning the abstinence from blood, things strangled, &c., (Acts xv.,)
rather than when they punish murder, idolatry, blasphemy, which are
condemned in the Word, presetted by pastors of Christ; and farther, this
objection would have some more colour, (in reality it hath not,) if
kings were only to execute what the church ministerially, in Christ's
name, commandeth to be done in synods; but kings may, and do command
synods to convene, and do their duty, and command many duties, never
synodically decreed; as they are to cast out of their court apostate
prelates, sleeping many years in the devil's arms, and are to command
trencher-divines, neglecting their flock, and lying at court attending
the falling of a dead bishop, as ravens do an old dying horse, to go and
attend the flock, and not the court, as this P. Prelate did.
3. A king hath greater outward glory, and may do much more service to
Christ, in respect of extension, and is more excellent than the pastor,
who yet, in regard of intention, is busied about nobler things, to wit,
the soul, the gospel, and eternity, than the king.
4. Superstition maddeneth men; but it followeth, not that true religion
may not set them on work to defend soul and body against tyranny of the
crown, and antichristian mitres.
P. Prelate.  The kingdom had peace and plenty in the prelates' time.
Ans.  1. A belly-argument. We had, plenty, when we sacrificed to the
queen of heaven. If the traveller contend to have his purse again, shall
the robber say, Robbery was blessed with peace? The rest, to the end,
are lies, and answered already. Only his invectives against ruling
elders, falsely called lay-elders, are not to purpose. Parliament-
priests, and lay and court-pastors, are lay-prophets.
2. That presbyteries meddle with civil business, is a slander. They
meddle with public scandals that offendeth in Christ's kingdom. But the
prelates, by office, were more in two elements, in church and state,
than any frogs, even in the king's leaven-tubs, ordinarily.
3. Something he saith of popes usurping over kings, but only of one of
his fathers, a great unclean spirit, Gregory the Great. But if he had
refuted him by God's word, he should have thrown stones at his own
tribe; for prelates, like him, do ex officio trample upon the neck of
kings.
4. His testimonies of one council and one father for all antiquity
proveth nothing. Athanasius said, "God hath given David's throne to
kings." What, to be head of the church? No; to be minister of God,
without e0cw to tutor the church. And, because "Kings reign by Christ,"
as the council of Armin saith; therefore, it may follow, a bailie is
also head of the church. It is taken from Prov. viii., and answered.
5. That presbyteries have usurped over kings more than popes, since
Hildebrand, is a lie. All stories are full of the usurpation of
prelates, his own tribe. The Pope is but a swelled tat prelate; and what
he saith of popes, he saith of his own house.
6. The ministers of Christ in Scotland had never a contest with king
James but for his sins, and his conniving with papists, and his
introducing bishops, the ushers of the Pope.